Manufacturing Processes - Factory At Your Desk

Explore the types of district manufacturing and learn how to choose and configure setups for producing parts in repetitive manufacturing, understanding typical layouts, configurations, and radius setups.

Cellular manufacturing applies group technology to group similar parts into cells, arranging machines into gear families like spur and spiral gears to minimize movement and improve quality and productivity.

Explore just in time manufacturing, a Toyota-inspired philosophy that reduces inventory, eliminates waste, and improves feed and cycle time while delivering right quality and quantity to OEMs and customers.

Explore flexible manufacturing systems that integrate computer controlled tools, automated material handling, and testing to reduce changeover time and rapidly adapt to production changes through machine and routing flexibility.

Explore how manufacturing strategy evolves from supply-driven to demand-driven amid globalization, technology, and changing consumer behavior, guiding discrete manufacturers to gain competitive advantage through aligned resource deployment.

Explore make-to-stock strategy, its reliance on demand forecasts, and implications for inventory management and seasonal production, with examples from consumer electronics and perishable goods.

Make to order strategy produces products on customer orders, balancing with make to stock to keep resources utilized. Companies forecast demand from dealers and online channels, plan for mass customization.

Configure to order lets customers customize standard products within set specifications, unlike make to order which sells based on prior orders, with examples like car dashboards and customized aircraft.

Assemble to order (ATO) is a hybrid production strategy that delivers customized products quickly. Components are produced in advance and only assembled after customer order, enabling delivery and customization.

Explore conventional lathe machines, their operations, and the working principle of turning, drilling, and other cuts using parts like the bed, headstock, chuck, stock, and carriage.

Explore how CNC lathes use computer numerical control to drive spindles, carriages, chucks, and turrets; load part programs via network or USB device to automate machining operations.

Explore the basics of a bmc milling machine and the differences between csc and emc configurations, tool changers, spindle operation, and the base, column, table, and axis movements.

Explore how a column drilling machine uses a fixed drill axis, spindle, and driving head to drill holes in solid workpieces. Clamp the work on a round or rectangular table.

Explore how a mechanical press uses a crank-driven ram to shape sheet metal with punches and dies through blanking, punching, piercing, and bending.

Learn metal cutting as a machining process, including purpose, classifications, types of cutting tools, process planning, and setup, with chip removal and cutting motions like turning, milling, grinding.

Explore single point cutting on a lathe, with a single sharp tool and key angles, and learn turning, facing, grooving, parting, boring, and threading operations.

Explore multi point cutting as a metal removal process, illustrating milling, drilling, broaching, and shaving with rotating cutters, including face milling, end milling, drilling holes, counter boring, and reaming.

Explore abrasive machining through grinding, removing material with irregular, randomly oriented abrasive particles on the workpiece, using aluminium oxide or silicon carbide to achieve dimension control on hard workpieces.

Explore metal cutting processes, from fixtures and setup changes to single, multi, and random point cutting tools, and learn how process planning and minimizing setups optimize resources.

Explore metal forming, its purpose and classifications, including bulk deformation and sheet metal working with forging, extrusion, rolling, and wire drawing. Examine applications and advantages and limitations.

Explore bulk deformation in forming processes, where large plastic deformation changes shape with negligible elastic recovery, including forging, rolling, extrusion, and open‑die versus closed‑die forging.

Explore cold, warm, and hot working processes. Compare room temperature cold forming with warm and hot working at crystallization and melting temperatures, highlighting surface finish, tolerances, and deformation.

Explore forged parts across automotive, shipbuilding, defence, and aerospace, highlighting strength, reliability, and cost effectiveness, with examples like axle beams, gears, drive shafts, and landing gear.

Explore sheet metal forming to mass-produce stamped parts for automotive, aerospace, and consumer goods, using punching, blanking, bending, deep drawing, and piercing with a press and die.

Casting pours molten metal into a mold cavity, fills and solidifies into the desired shape with dimensional accuracy. It covers sand, permanent mold, die, and centrifugal casting, plus common defects.

Explore metal joining fundamentals, including welding, bolting, and riveting, and distinguish permanent from temporary joints and their heat- and force-based applications in automotive, aerospace, and construction.

Master brazing, a joining process that deposits filler metal by capillary action without melting base, using alloys like aluminum and copper. Explore soldering below 450 degrees for electronics and jewelry.

learn the basics of welding as a heat-based method to join metal parts into permanent joints, covering gas welding, resistance welding, thermal welding, chemical welding, and common defects and applications.

Explore the factory's manufacturing process flow, from procurement and design to production planning, stores, and quality, through a step-by-step walk-through of a discrete manufacturing setup.

Explore the manufacturing process flow, defining engineered parts by form, fit, and function as depicted by drawings, and compare in-house production with supplier procurement within supply conditions.

Identify work centers as integrated machines and labor skills that determine available manufacturing capacity, assign operations like turning and drilling, and track data to improve efficiencies through scrap utilization.

Learn how process routing defines the sequence of operations, tools, machines, and setup and run times. Understand routing sheets with unique identifiers and electronic work instructions on the shop floor.

Develop production plans by translating the demand plan into a master production schedule that drives orders on time through material requirements planning and in-house versus purchased item decisions.

Explore the end to end manufacturing process of an automotive component company, from demand intake and drawing review to procurement, routing, and rough cut capacity planning.

Explain how a consolidated demand plan and delivery schedules guide production planning, procurement, and shop-floor execution for part b, including routing, quality checks, and outsourcing.

Identify emerging manufacturing trends, challenges, and opportunities in Industry 4.0, tracing the evolution from the first to the third industrial revolutions.

Discover how Industry 4.0 unites nine digital technologies, including augmented reality, virtual reality, and robotics, to enable smart manufacturing from digital design to real-time data and optimization.